Editorial: The Week in Parliament

The central bank raised interest rates on Wednesday morning — 25 basis points, from 7.25% to 7.5% — and parliament spent the rest of the day arguing about Europe. That juxtaposition tells you almost everything about this week.

The rate rise arrived while the Alþingi was debating whether to put Iceland's EU membership application back on the table. Jóhann Páll Jóhannsson, the Environment Minister, stood up and described the decision as "algjörlega afleit tíðindi" — utterly wretched news — before spending the next paragraph insisting his government had nothing to do with it. Jens Garðar Helgason of Miðflokkurinn put it more directly: "Svartur dagur." A black day, with rising rates, rising inflation, and unemployment at its highest since the pandemic. The timing was not subtle. Parliament was in the middle of passing a bill linking social security payments to the wage index — and the central bank governor had warned that morning that doing so would stoke inflation further.

The government chose to proceed anyway. The social security bill passed 33–21 on Thursday, with Framsóknarflokkurinn (the Progressive Party) largely abstaining — a pattern that has become their signature contribution to this coalition's arithmetic. Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (the Independence Party) voted against in a bloc. The underlying argument — whether wage-indexing benefits is humanitarian policy or inflationary fuel — is one of those disputes where both sides are genuinely right about something, and both know it. The coalition's view is that people living on benefits deserve protection from real-wage erosion. The opposition's view is that wage-indexing at a moment of overheating passes the cost onto mortgage holders. Neither argument is wrong; the question is whose pain gets prioritised.

The EU debate occupied the parliament's longest sessions of the week, with 739 speeches delivered across five days — a 145% increase on the previous week's 301. The þjóðaratkvæðagreiðsla um framhald viðræðna um aðild Íslands að Evrópusambandinu (the resolution on holding a referendum on resuming EU accession talks) generated the most heat. The coalition's position — that this is merely a question about whether to start talks, not about membership itself — was methodically attacked from the opposition benches. Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir of Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn asked the question that the government consistently declined to answer: if voters say yes in the summer referendum, will Iceland begin adapting its regulatory framework to EU rules before a second vote? The foreign minister's failure to give a straight answer to this was not, the opposition argued, coyness. It was the whole point.

The procedural skirmish on Wednesday evening revealed something about the balance of forces. The coalition pushed a motion to extend the parliamentary sitting beyond its statutory limit; Miðflokkurinn had decided at their party caucus that afternoon to force a vote rather than accept an informal arrangement. The motion passed 30–21 — coalition parties in favour, opposition against, with the Independence Party notably absent in significant numbers. Whether this reflects principled conservatism about parliamentary procedure or a tactical preference for less legislative output is a question the data cannot answer, though an absence rate of 20.4% invites the question.

One bill that passed almost without comment deserves mention. The veitingastaðir, gististaðir og skemmtanahald (hospitality premises) legislation — which grandfathers existing short-term rental licences in residential buildings until 2032 — cleared its third reading 31–23. It is the kind of bill that attracts little of the week's rhetorical energy but will matter considerably to Reykjavík's housing market.

The judgement. This was a parliament doing two things simultaneously and doing both imperfectly. The legislative output on social security, infrastructure, and the drug shortage bill was meaningful work. But the EU debate's ratio of heat to light was unflattering. When the government cannot answer the question "what does yes mean?", and the opposition will not engage with "what is the alternative to increased European cooperation?", the public is not being served. Twenty-five speeches on interest rates, 739 speeches in total — and the structural question driving both, how Iceland navigates an overheating economy within EEA constraints, went largely undiscussed.

Parliamentary Awards

Session 157 • Recognising the quirks and patterns of Althingi

Mic Drop of the Week

The single best speech of the week — as judged by our parliamentary critic.

Ása Berglind Hjálmarsdóttir (Samfylkingin) — Fangelsismál, 16 March

"Fangelsismál eru í eðli sínu prófsteinn á styrk réttarríkisins." Prison affairs are, by their nature, a litmus test for the strength of the rule of law.

While the chamber spent the week on EU referendums and interest rate recriminations, Ása Berglind opened Monday's session with a speech that did something more difficult: she made the boring urgent. The state of Iceland's prisons — overcrowded, under-resourced, audited critically by the national auditor in 2023 and found wanting again in a recent follow-up — is not a topic that fills press galleries. She made it one.

The speech was constructed like a legal brief. She established the problem (overcrowding, inadequate facilities), cited the evidence (the auditor's reports), moved to the structural question (when will the new Stóra-Hraun prison be built and how will it be designed), and then landed on the policy challenge that all the bricks-and-mortar discussion tends to obscure: a large-scale study combining results from dozens of international studies shows that targeted rehabilitation, education, and treatment in prisons reduce the likelihood of reoffending by around 43%. "The question," she said, "is not whether we should prioritise rehabilitation but how we do it as well as possible."

Justice Minister Þorbjörg Sigríður Gunnlaugsdóttir gave a substantive reply — tendering construction was imminent, segregation of prisoner groups would be possible, educational facilities would be built in — and announced a bill on foreign prisoner deportations. Whether this constitutes a full rehabilitation strategy is debatable. But Ása Berglind had at least ensured the debate would happen, with numbers and a framework, rather than vague intentions.

Ása Berglind Hjálmarsdóttir (Sf) — 650 words on Fangelsismál (2026-03-16).

In a chamber consumed by EU politics, Ása Berglind recentred attention on the state's most neglected obligation. Her prison reform speech married evidence (43% recidivism reduction from rehabilitation) with structural ambition.

Sharpest Question

The most incisive question or challenge posed in debate this week.

Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir (Sjálfstæðisflokkur) — Fækkun endómetríósuaðgerða hjá Klíníkinni, 18 March

Timing is argument. Diljá Mist filed this question for endometriosis awareness month, and the calendar choice was deliberate.

The specific numbers she brought to the floor: the surgical quota at Klíníkin — Iceland's specialist endometriosis clinic and home to the country's most experienced surgeon in the field — had been cut by Health Minister Alma D. Möller from 170 to 111 procedures for 2026, despite waiting lists that had already grown substantially. She cited her own previous parliamentary question, which had established that operations at Klíníkin cost roughly half what they cost at Landspítali. She cited Endósamtökin, the patient advocacy organisation, which had raised formal concerns the previous summer when the minister first moved to stop subsidising procedures at private facilities.

"Endósjúklingar vilja að það sé hlustað á þá," she said — endometriosis patients want to be heard — "and feel that the minister repeatedly makes decisions about their lives and health without letting their voices be heard."

The minister has not yet answered publicly to the satisfaction of the advocacy groups. But the question is on the record, the numbers are on the record, and the timing — during the one month of the year when this patient group receives any public attention — was not coincidental. That is how this kind of question gets answered, eventually.

Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir (Sj) — on fækkun endómetríósuaðgerða hjá Klíníkinni (2026-03-18).

Timed to endometriosis awareness month, Diljá Mist cornered the health minister with specific numbers — a surgery quota slashed from 170 to 111 — while patient advocacy groups demanded answers.

Data sourced from Althingi Open Data (althingi.is). Generated 2026-03-22.

MP Spotlight

A deep dive into one parliamentarian each week

Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir
Sjálfstæðisflokkur

Born 1987-12-21

Stúdentspróf VÍ 2006. BA-próf í lögfræði frá HÍ 2009. MA-próf í lögfræði frá HÍ 2011. Hdl. 2012. LLM-próf í alþjóðlegum umhverfis- og auðlindarétti frá HÍ 2017. Hrl. 2018.

154 speeches this session

32,998 words total

214 words avg per speech

Speeches: Speech count (percentile). Attendance: Vote participation rate. Loyalty: Votes aligned with party majority. Breadth: Issue diversity (percentile). Experience: Sessions served (percentile).

Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir: The Lawyer in the Room

There is a particular kind of parliamentary MP who is most dangerous when they are asking a question. Not because they don't know the answer — they usually do — but because the act of forcing a minister to say the answer aloud, in public, on the record, is itself the political operation. Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir of Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (the Independence Party) is that kind of MP.

Born in Reykjavík on 21 December 1987 to a supreme court attorney father and a psychologist-educationalist mother, she absorbed two professional disciplines early: the legal habit of precision, and the psychological habit of reading what people are not saying. Her education reinforced the first. A BA in law from the University of Iceland, an MA, an héraðsdómslögmaður qualification, then an LLM in international environmental and resource law — she was in formal legal education, on and off, for most of the first decade of her adult life. She qualified as a hæstaréttarlögmaður (supreme court lawyer) in 2018.

The political apprenticeship ran in parallel. She was active in the youth wing of Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn from her university years, served as deputy chair of Heimdallur, the party's Reykjavík youth association, and became a deputy city councillor in 2018 — the same year she finished her legal training and spent a period as a part-time law lecturer at the Verzlunarskóli Íslands. The three years between 2018 and 2021 were busy ones: legal practice, teaching, municipal politics, and a posting as a parliamentary assistant to the foreign affairs and development cooperation minister.

She entered the Alþingi for the first time in 2021, representing the northern Reykjavík constituency. By the next session she was chairing the Efnahags- og viðskiptanefnd (Economics and Business Affairs Committee). By 2023 she was chairing Utanríkismálanefndin (the Foreign Affairs Committee), a post that put her at the centre of every significant international debate Iceland was having. She has now sat through six parliamentary sessions, accumulated 510 speeches and over 122,000 words on the record, and shows no signs of running out of things to say.

The EU File

If you want to understand how Diljá Mist operates, the EU accession debate of the past several weeks is the best evidence. Iceland's coalition government — Samfylkingin (the Social Democrats), Viðreisn (the Reform Party), and Flokkur fólksins (the People's Party) — has been pushing a resolution to hold a public referendum on resuming accession talks with the EU. The proposition has a parliamentary majority. It does not have a cross-party consensus, and Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn is leading the opposition.

What distinguishes Diljá Mist's contributions from the standard opposition playbook is that she rarely argues against Europe per se. She argues for information. Her persistent demand — delivered across multiple speeches in March — is that the government answer a specific question: what does a yes vote in the summer referendum actually commit Iceland to? Will Iceland begin adapting its regulatory framework to EU rules before a second, definitive membership vote? Will the government disclose the conditions under which it would recommend accession?

The foreign minister, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, has not answered this directly. Diljá Mist has noted, with forensic pleasantness, that both Viðreisn and Samfylkingin have on their party websites an unqualified commitment to EU membership. The resolution itself, she observed, references the goals of the 2010 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir government — a text over fifteen years old — and uses the phrase "the sovereignty of the nation" exactly twice. "Is it reasonable to ask the nation to give a blank mandate in this referendum?" she asked in her Monday speech. The question was rhetorical only in form.

This is Diljá Mist at her most characteristic. She is not opposed to the public having a vote. She is insisting that the vote be legible — that voters know what they are voting for. That she is doing so as an opponent of EU membership gives the argument partisan colouring, and the government has been happy to lean on that colouring. But the argument itself is procedurally sound, and it applies regardless of your view on European integration. When she pointed out that Iceland first learned the date of its own referendum from EU media, before any announcement in the Alþingi, the procedural objection was not trivial.

The Patient Record

Her voting record this session is instructive. Out of 699 votes, she has voted with her party 602 times — a loyalty score of 94.8%. But the 33 dissenting votes tell a more interesting story than the headline figure. Most of them cluster in the gender equality implementation plan debate in early February, where she departed from the Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn group in ways that suggest a more differentiated personal position on equality policy than the party's collective stance. She voted já (yes) on a gender equality motion when her party group declined to vote — once in the affirmative where they abstained, and separately cast greiðir ekki atkvæði (abstain) where the party voted yes. These are not accidents. They are the record of someone who takes positions on individual questions rather than simply accepting the whip.

Her 20.4% party absence rate this session is not the most flattering figure — Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn had the highest absence rate of any party this week — though much of this reflects notified absences for international parliamentary committee work. She serves on both the EFTA and EEA parliamentary committees, and on the Iceland-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee, and actually chairs the Icelandic delegation's vice-chairmanship of the EFTA parliamentary committee. The international work is not ornamental: she spent significant time in 2025 at EFTA meetings, was part of the Icelandic delegation to Kuching and Kuala Lumpur, and presented the full annual report of the EFTA/EEA parliamentary committees to the Alþingi in February.

The paradox — spending considerable time in European parliamentary structures while opposing EU membership — is not lost on her. She addressed it directly in the January foreign affairs debate: she is not anti-European cooperation, she is pro-EEA as it stands, and she is specifically opposed to Iceland surrendering the regulatory flexibility it currently enjoys. It is a coherent position, even if its critics would argue it underestimates the degree to which Iceland already operates inside EU regulatory frameworks.

The Week's Best Question

On Wednesday 18 March, during endometriosis awareness month, Diljá Mist stood up and asked the Health Minister, Alma D. Möller, why the surgical quota at Klíníkin — Iceland's leading endometriosis treatment facility — had been cut from 170 to 111 procedures for 2026. She knew the numbers before she asked. She knew that waiting lists had grown. She knew that at Klíníkin, operations cost roughly half what they cost at Landspítali — the national hospital — and that the country's most experienced endometriosis surgeon works there. She knew that the cuts came despite a patient advocacy organisation, Endósamtökin, having raised formal concerns the previous summer.

The question earned this week's Sharpest Question award, and it deserved it not because it was hostile but because it was targeted. "Endometriosis patients want to be heard," she said, "and feel that the minister repeatedly makes decisions about their lives and health without letting their voices be heard." She has raised this issue consistently since entering parliament. It is the kind of constituency work — on behalf of a group that is not her electoral base, on a topic that attracts little glory, at a moment of political calendar chosen for maximum effect — that distinguishes a serious MP from an opportunist.

The Air Quality Inquiry

Two days earlier, she had asked the Education and Children's Affairs Minister about outdoor playtime for nursery school children during Reykjavík's recurring air quality crises. A resident had described the smog as "like pouring concrete without a mask." Diljá Mist noted, with the kind of specific detail that wins arguments in committees, that Reykjavík streets are cleaned once a year — significantly less frequently than in neighbouring Kópavogur or Hafnarfjörður — and that her own white dog's coat had shown visible evidence of the conditions. It is a small detail, but small details are how lawyers make cases.

The Wider Assessment

Ten years ago, Diljá Mist was a junior associate in a law firm, doing part-time academic work on environmental law. Today she is one of the Alþingi's most active members, with the deepest foreign affairs portfolio of anyone on the opposition benches and a distinctive legislative style that sits somewhere between adversarial cross-examination and patient procedural instruction.

She does not always win the argument in the chamber. The EU referendum will go ahead — the parliamentary majority will see to that. The endometriosis quota cut will produce answers that the Health Minister has drafted to satisfy rather than persuade. But in the accumulated record — 510 speeches, 50 distinct issues engaged this session alone, a voting record that shows real independence — what you see is the portrait of a parliamentarian who has decided that doing the work carefully is its own sufficient answer to the question of whether it matters.

That is, in the end, what a lawyer does: make a record that survives the proceedings.

Key Legislation & Votes

Legislation Advancing

Legislation Advancing

Stage key: 1st reading • In committee • 2nd reading • 3rd reading • Enacted